Abstract

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and other agencies are expressing significant interest in blockchain technology because it promises inherent transparency, resiliency, forgery-resistance, and nonrepudiation that can be used to protect sensitive infrastructure. At the same time, numerous high-profile incidents of coding errors in blockchain applications causing major damage to organizations have raised serious concerns about adoption of this technology. CMU SEI and the CMU Computer Science Department are creating a novel programming language—Obsidian—specifically tailored to secure blockchain software development, significantly reducing the risk of such coding errors.